CORAL ISLANDS. Al 
character, and become a shallow lake, and the green islets of the 
margin have coalesced in many instances into a continuous line of 
foliage. ‘Traces may perhaps be still detected of the passage or pas- 
sages over which the sea once communicated with the internal waters, 
though mostly concealed by the trees and shrubbery which have 
spread around and completed the belt of verdure. ‘The coral island 
is now in its most finished state: the lake rests quietly in its bed of 
palms, scarce ruffled by the storms that madden the surrounding 
ocean. 
From the islands with small lagoons, there is every variety in the 
gradation down to those in which there is scarcely a trace of a lagoon. 
These simple banks of coral are the smallest of coral islands. 
These remarks, in connexion with the general view given on a pre- 
ceding page (p. 32), will prepare the reader to appreciate the following 
descriptions of various coral islands, illustrating their forms, actual 
size, and condition. 
A single group of islands, the Tarawan or Kingsmills, (see annexed 
plate,) affords good examples of the principal varieties.* The irregu- 
larity of shape and size is at once apparent to the eye. In the south- 
ernmost, Taputeouea, the form is very narrow, the length being thirty- 
three miles, with the width of the southern portion scarcely exceeding 
six miles, and that of the northern more than one-halfless. The emerged 
land is confined to one side, and consists of a series of islets, upon the 
eastern line of coral reef. The western side is for the most part some 
feet under water, and there is hardly a proper lagoon. Sailing by 
the island to windward, the patches of verdure thus strung together 
seem to rise out of a long white line of breakers, the sea surging 
violently against the unseen coral reef upon which they rest. 
Namouti, the next island north, is about twenty miles long by eight 
broad. ‘The rim of land, though in fewer islets, is similar to that of 
Taputeouea in being confined to the reef fronting northeast. The reef 
of the opposite side, though bare of vegetation, stands near low tide 
level, and the whole encloses a large lagoon. 
Nanoukt and Apamama, though smaller than Namouti, have the 
same general character. Nanouki is triangular in shape, and has an 
islet on the western point or cape, which is quite prominent. Apa- 
mama differs from either of the preceding in having two narrow ship- 
* The plate is a reduced copy of the chart of these islands, as surveyed by the Ex- 
ploring Expedition. 
